Joint Ownership of Spouses – Procedural Aspects

The legal question raised was addressed by the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic (Judgment No. 7Cdo/235/2022 dated 29 November 2023).

The subject of the court proceedings, which commenced before the District Court of Liptovský Mikuláš, was the settlement of the joint ownership of spouses (community property – BSM). In its decision, the District Court disregarded loans allegedly provided to the defendant by natural persons during the marriage, as the defendant proposed this evidence only at the final hearing. If the court were to admit such evidence, the hearing would have had to be adjourned. Furthermore, the court argued that even if the evidence were admitted, it would not have been proven how the funds from those contracts had been used. The defendant had not submitted this evidence during the course of the proceedings or in response to the plaintiff’s submissions, despite having been instructed that the court may disregard facts and evidence presented at a later stage. He was also informed of the consequences of judicial concentration. Therefore, the court considered the defendant’s statements regarding the loans to be tactical, aiming to reduce the value of the settlement payment to be awarded to the plaintiff within the framework of the joint ownership of spouses.

The District Court justified its approach by referring to the principle of judicial concentration of proceedings pursuant to Section 153(1) of Act No. 160/2015 Coll., the Code of Civil Dispute Procedure (hereinafter referred to as the “CSP”), which provides: “The parties are obliged to assert the means of procedural attack and the means of procedural defence in a timely manner. Means of procedural attack and defence are not considered timely if the party could have submitted them earlier had it acted with due diligence, taking into account the speed and economy of the proceedings.”

The defendant was not satisfied with the assessment of the District Court (which was also upheld by the Regional Court in Žilina) and submitted the following question to the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic:

“Whether the court’s discretionary right under Section 153 of the CSP to disregard means of procedural attack and defence is limited by the nature of the dispute – specifically, that it is a dispute under Section 137(b) of the CSP – in such a way that the court may not disregard means of procedural attack and defence that were not asserted in a timely manner, if they are decisive for the merits of the case.”

The Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic concluded that “the conditions for judicial concentration of the proceedings were fulfilled in the given case. Judicial concentration also applies in disputes concerning the settlement of the joint ownership of spouses, since it is precisely in these disputes that, when determining the mass of the BSM, it is necessary for the parties to provide the court with proper and timely cooperation. In the present case, both the first-instance and appellate courts assessed the defendant’s claims regarding loans from natural persons as being tactical, without a material factual basis, which was not substantiated to such a degree as to be a suitable subject of evidence.”